Beast's Beauty, page 9
But this…this was primitive. Bare. Basic. And damn terrifying.
And if it scared me, what the hells was it doing to the woman, who would never have experienced stasis before?
I roared again, arching my back to add more leverage to my knees.
The airtight seams along the upper edge of the box cracked, showing a sliver of blue light. Then the top popped free, rocketing away from the unit with such force that, with the resistance suddenly removed, my legs shot almost vertical.
Ramming my elbows into the sides of the box, I jerked upright. Ripped the air mask from my face with clawed, numb hands that barely responded to my commands. “Where is she?” Gods, was I now so much a Beast, I’d lost the ability to speak? The sound that came from my throat was more howl than words.
My jaw felt as though my teeth had been clenched for a thousand years, and I worked it from side-to-side as I scanned the room. Four Tenolokyf guarded the small med center. One was struggling to pry the lid of my stasis unit from where I’d catapulted it into the far wall. Another clutched a taser across his chest, all three of his eyes roving in different directions, two spare hands fidgeting with the rawhide belt he wore to hold his filthy furs together. Ddoram stood over the only other closed stasis unit as Aardrevt punched at the control panel.
The hells with trying to speak. I scrambled from the box, my legs buckling under the unexpected weight of the fur and muscle mass I was still unaccustomed to.
As I staggered toward the woman’s stasis unit, I roared again, shaking my head, trying to clear it so I could think.
Aardrevt had the unit open, his arms around the woman’s shoulders, wrestling her into a sitting position as his other pair of his hands worked on the ties around her wrists. All I could see above her breather mask were wide, terrified blue eyes. As Ddoram bent toward her feet, presumably to remove the restraints on her ankles, a strangled scream came from behind the woman’s mask.
I surged forward, lowering one shoulder and driving it into Ddoram’s meaty gut. The air left his single lung with a woof, and the captain staggered back against the wall. I whirled, shoving the scientist aside as he scrabbled for a weapon in his belt. “Out of my way. You’ve woken her too quickly, you idiot.”
With far more care than I’d shown my own, I lifted the woman’s mask gently, untangling her long hair from the straps. Her pupils contracted and flared dizzily, and she panted almost as hard as I had.
“Calm down,” I instructed gruffly, the words almost unintelligible through my growl. “You’ll be disoriented. It’s a side effect.”
“Disoriented? No. Nightmare. Having a nightmare!” Her hands snagged the front of my ridiculously tight stasis suit. “I dreamed I was abduct—no, wait. You!” Terror bugged her eyes out.
Her visceral reaction kicked me in the gut. Her previous ‘show no fear’ stance had been a façade and now, with her reactions reduced to naked honesty by the effects of the stasis, her true terror was evident.
And it was directed at me, just as much as at the Tenolokyf.
No. Perhaps not quite as much. Because as she swiveled her gaze urgently around the room as though seeking the door that led out of her nightmare, the woman shrank from the Tenolokyf—but kept her fingers wound in my clothing.
Aardrevt reached a scaly hand toward her. “Out of chamber. Now.”
I slammed my hand across his forearm. “Don’t you touch her.”
He sniggered. “You want I leave all the touching for your Beast, right?”
Still sitting in the stasis chamber, the woman shook her head, quakes seizing her body, her teeth audibly clashing together with the force. “Where am I? Oh, God, I’m gonna hurl.” Her throat working convulsively, she looked up at me with panicked eyes.
“It’s okay,” I soothed. “Nausea is a side effect of stasis. Let’s get you out of there.”
I bent to place an arm beneath her knees. Too late. She groaned, her body shuddering as she leaned forward, a string of green bile ejecting from her mouth and spattering her thighs. Convulsions wracked her body, seeming likely to tear her delicate frame apart as her stomach tried to rid itself of sustenance it evidently did not contain.
Ddoram staggered back, the revulsion on his face comical. “What is that? What is wrong with the human? Is she failing?”
“Involuntary regurgitation,” I answered shortly. “It’s nothing.” Damn, I should have let him think she was fatally ill, so we’d escape the Rampage. But the woman was already panicked enough, I didn’t want to add to her concerns by insinuating that she was unwell. Probably not the smartest call, though, as a little concern now would be better than losing her life on Notratrh during the Rampage.
“That’s disgusting.” Ddoram’s left eye rolled wildly, the other two glued on the woman in appalled revulsion. Aardrevt seemed more concerned with the vital statistics he was dialing up on his wristcom, then beaming onto a blank wall.
“You have to be kidding me,” I snorted. I’d seen what the Tenolokyf ate. I placed my palm in the small of the woman’s back, careful not to pierce her suit with my claws.
Damn it to all hells, she was sobbing between the great, gasping shudders. She tried to wipe at her face with the back of one trembling hand. Her breathing was too rapid, panicked, and clearly her lungs hadn’t yet adjusted to the different ratio of oxygen intake now that her mask was off. Her pale skin was damp and clammy, and perspiration sheened her forehead.
“Listen to me. Woman. Am-Amelia?” Though I’d refused to use her name before, now she needed something to ground her, to provide a level of normality. And, in a spaceship crowded with four-armed, three-eyed aliens—and a hairy Beast— it seemed her own name was the only thing I could offer her.
Her teeth chattered as her gaze fixed on mine.
I reached to brush the long strands of loose hair from her face but winced and dropped my hand as she shrank back from me. “Amelia? It’s all right. These seraroach brought you out of stasis too quickly, it’ll take your body a while to adjust.”
“Seraroach?” Her white-rimmed lips trembled as she whispered the word.
“Maybe you’ve seen them in those books you tend on Earth?” I doubted it. Not with the humans firmly oblivious to anything beyond their tiny planet. But I wanted to distract her. “Seraroach are worthless insects with a propensity for breeding with both their own young and inappropriate species.”
“No. They’re not going to—!” She scrambled backward in the stasis cube, which was more than large enough to accommodate her.
Damn. I really wasn’t good at this soothing crap. “No, no. These are Tenolokyf, remember? I was just…what is it you say on Earth? Talking beetric shit on them. They don’t plan to do…that to you. With you.” I wasn’t even sure what the correct term was. I’d never taken an unwilling woman in my life. Never would.
Amelia had been willing when I’d taken her. More than willing by the second time she orgasmed. And I hadn’t even used my tail.
Beast, though…he couldn’t be trusted. Maybe I would have been content to let him take over what remained of my sorry excuse of a life, give me an escape from my memories and failures. But now I had to make certain I remained in control of him. Because Amelia was my responsibility. My challenge. My One—no!
Even if by some sad, ironic twist of fate, the talk of the Hunger, of The One, had been more than fables, I was no longer a man. It could never be my fairytale.
Ddoram snorted, though he kept his distance. “Not touching the fleshy if she’s going to—what is it you say? Regurgitate. She is all for your Beast.”
Amelia pressed trembling fingertips to her temples, and I figured her head pounded at least as badly as my own. “I can’t understand him properly. What does he mean, Jrec?”
I liked the way she said my name.
Hells, I had no right to. I should be warning her to run a million light years from me. Or from the Beast, anyway. Because right now, he wanted to snatch the woman up in his arms and charge from the room, as though he could somehow save her from the fate the Tenolokyf had planned. If I allowed his desire for the woman to stir my Krakarian Hunger, together we’d no doubt terrify the woman as much as anything the four-armed bastards could come up with.
Instead of answering, I snarled at the Tenolokyf. “Why didn’t you follow protocol in resuscitating her? Stasis has never been tested on humans. Look how weak she is.” I was trying to distract my own thoughts, but it was true; Amelia looked ill, dark bruises tinting the fine skin beneath her eyes, her movements slow and uncoordinated. “Why did you wake her so rapidly?”
“Time for market,” Aardrevt glanced up from his com and rattled the words out through a throat full of snot.
The other two Tenolokyf had succeeded in lifting the door of my stasis capsule back into place and dropped it with a great clanking. They glanced guiltily at Ddoram, as though they expected rebuke. The captain flapped a hand at them. “Take it to the hold. Don’t leave it unsecured, fools. And bring the clothes.”
Aardrevt didn’t look up at the noise but remained focused on Amelia as she swayed where she sat. He jabbed a finger at her. “Sponsors need to see we have the product.”
“The Ousndjarkd? If they’re your capital investors, you’re screwed,” I snorted. “They don’t favor Krakarians. They’ll demand your repayment immediately.” As I spoke, I lifted Amelia’s unresisting form from the cube, setting her gently on the floor, my arm wrapped around her waist to support her. She staggered a little, clutching at my suit, though the tightness of the material meant she had a handful of my fur as well. I winced but didn’t pull away.
“The Ousndjarkd don’t favor anyone,” Aardrevt leered. “But they are careful investors. And in any case, you’re not Krakarian anymore. Thanks to me, you’re nothing but a Beast.”
Yeah, it was his fault alright.
Yet I couldn’t break from the notion that perhaps the Beast had always been within me. That he was merely another facet to my character, the flipside to the personality I chose to share with the worlds. His revelation—maybe freed by the Tenolokyf drugs—shaming me with his uncontrollable, animalistic lusts, depravations, and desires was punishment for my actions. Because wasn’t that the warning every Krakarian parent passed on to their offspring? ‘Act with honor, integrity, and respect, lest the Beast control you and destroy all that you are.’
The Tenolokyf’s tail whipped forward to jab at my chest. Like the bastard didn’t have enough hands. “The Ousndjarkd will see I have created the perfect combatants, paired a human and a Beast, a coupling no one else possesses.” A waft of rotted eelon filled the small room as he waved a hand at Amelia, then ran a finger through the green dampness on her stasis suit. The flattened slits where his nose should have been flared, the gills fluttering as he sniffed at his finger.
Ddoram hacked deep in his throat, apparently as close to retching as a Teno could get, and staggered back from us.
A growl rumbled through my chest. Something here did not sit right. Beyond the whole kidnapped-by-hostile-life-forms, biologically-altered and forced-to-fight scenario, that was. “If you’re so confident we will win, why the market?”
“When Ousndjarkd see that we can sell fleshy on the market after you win, they will lend us more xasa for the gamble.” Aardrevt’s eyes roamed in three different directions, avoiding mine. If he hadn’t reeked like a shitty liar before, he sure as hells did now.
“You can’t sell her.” My arm tightened reflexively around Amelia’s waist, and she leaned in against me, shuddering, as though she sought my warmth. “Victors go free.” The odds were heavily stacked against us surviving the Rampage, but one of the very few the rules of the sport had always been that the survivors were released.
Aardrevt shrugged, his lower hands also lifting, though he seemed to express unconcern, rather than disagreement.
Ddoram sniggered, and Aardrevt shot him a look from beneath a lowered brow.
“Jrec?” Amelia whispered. “What’s going on?”
I glanced down at her small, pale face. Deliberately eased my posture, hoping she didn’t pick up on my agitation. “Nothing. Just working out some of the finer details of our participation in this game.” I gave her an encouraging smile, then realized that, fangs and tusks, it probably looked more like I was planning to devour her. Whatever. I couldn’t deal with everything at once.
I turned back to the two Tenolokyf officers. “Let me get this right. You not only borrowed money from the galaxies’ most rapacious creditors to fund your attack against my ship, and probably to purchase the vapofuel for your light-leap to Earth, but you’re stupid enough to borrow to gamble?” Tenolokyf weren’t the brightest halolights in the street, but surely even they’d comprehend that there was no way this scenario would ever end well.
My hand froze on Amelia’s shoulder, a sudden realization injecting ice into my veins. It couldn’t end well—unless the Tenolokyf were gambling on us losing. If they were smart enough to do that, they won either way; if we completed the Rampage before the other pairs, our captors took the prize money, paid off the Ousndjarkd, and presumably retained a fat profit.
But if they displayed us at the market, convincingly talking us up as great warriors and the most likely winners of the Rampage, they’d get terrific odds betting against us. The punters bet on both the winners and losers of the Rampage, predicting how soon each team would be eliminated. Which meant the Tenolokyf could potentially cash in by deliberately setting us up to fail.
Ddoram tossed his greasy white hair over his shoulder. “Not gamble. Invest. Aardrevt promises his Beast will fight to protect the woman. You will win or she will die.”
The rasp of my claws against the nylonium of Amelia’s suit was loud in the gleeful silence of his pronouncement, and it took me a second to realize I was unintentionally stroking her back. I dropped my hand quickly and scowled at Ddoram. He didn’t seem smart enough to plan anything beyond the basic mechanics of throwing combatants into the Rampage and hoping they’d survive; he was definitely in the contest to win it.
But the science officer was more duplicitous. The shifty-eyed creep would have his tiny ass covered, maximizing his chance to come out on top whether we won or lost. And that left us in a hellish situation. The owners of the combatants were permitted to provide assistance to their protégés at preset points; if at any stage Aardrevt doubted we would ultimately win the Rampage, he’d withhold the Tenolokyfian assistance, to make sure of his gambling payout. Which meant no food, no water, no weapons, no aid, for us.
The only way we could guarantee the Tenolokyf’s help was to not only survive each stage of the course, but come through as the indisputable victors.
Ddoram turned as one of the guards re-entered the room. “Their clothes. Bring.”
Amelia groaned. “Clothes? What is with these guys and the endless wardrobe changes?”
Although her voice was weak, at least she was talking back again. I was pretty damn sure she’d have a whole lot more to say once she saw the traditional costume for the fleshy market.
The guard tossed over a small bundle of clothes.
My pants—though they’d been ripped across the thigh and stained with gold blood—were not among them.
Ddoram dangled a scrap of leather and fur from his claw, thrusting it toward Amelia.
I snatched the costume from him. “The woman already told you she will not undress in front of you.”
My fingers closed in a tight fist around the material; I yearned to protect Amelia from their leering, but she’d shown no reservation about undressing in front of me. She considered the Tenolokyf to be more man than she did me.
Show her urged the voice of the Beast.
“Jrec, there’s another man on here. One who might be able to help us,” Amelia whispered as she stepped closer to take the material.
My head jerked up. She’d seen one of my comrades? They were also captive on this ship? If we could reach them, maybe we had a chance. “Where did you see him?” I muttered. “Did he give you a name? Is he in one of these cells?”
She lifted one shoulder and her cheeks flushed, a becoming, soft pink color. “I didn’t get his name. We just…just….” She cleared her throat and drew herself taller, evidently trying to overcome her embarrassment. “But he’s a really big guy. Muscles-on-his-muscles kind of deal. I’m sure he’d be able to help us. He wasn’t happy about what these guys”—she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the Tenolokyf—“made him do. Well, not entirely happy.” Her color deepened and I couldn’t miss the peaking of her nipples punching against the fabric of her stasis suit.
“I know who you speak of,” I ground out. “He is of no use to us.”
Hells, I was jealous of myself.
11
Amelia
“Why can’t he help us?”
“They’ve sent him…elsewhere,” Jrec answered, his voice hard.
Gone? My shoulders sagged and my heart clenched tight at the realization we’d been together once and that would have to last me a lifetime.
Had I half-fallen for him?
“You will never see him again,” Jrec said. He nodded, as if he had to solidify the statement, which was kind of odd.
How could he know this when he’d been chained to the back wall of a cell? I glared at the skimpy outfit the other aliens had given me. Even though I trembled both inside and out, I lifted my chin, my jaw solidifying into granite. “I won’t wear it.” I shoved the garment away and pointed to my bile-splattered jumpsuit. “I’ll wear this.”
Ddoram casually pulled a long, black device from his belt. A stick? With a smirk, he poked it at Jrec, who spasmed when it connected with his chest. While he held the weapon against Jrec with a sickening grin revealing jagged teeth, Jrec twitched. His fur rippled. His mouth snapped shut and he arched his neck back. A stuttered groan burst from his mouth.
“Stop it,” I yelled, shoving myself between them, smacking at the device.
